Pak'n Save
Encyclopedia
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
discount food warehouse chain owned by the Foodstuffs
Foodstuffs
Foodstuffs is a group of three New Zealand grocery and liquor retailers' cooperatives based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch which collectively control an estimated 57% of the New Zealand grocery market...
cooperative.
Founded in 1985, Pak'n Save was the last of the five current major New Zealand supermarkets (Countdown
Countdown (supermarket)
Countdown is a New Zealand full-service supermarket chain, owned by Woolworths Limited. Founded in 1981, Countdown is now the flagship brand of Progressive Enterprises, Woolworths' New Zealand supermarket subsidiary, with 133 supermarkets across New Zealand...
, Foodtown
Foodtown
| area_served =| key_people =| industry = Retail| products =| services =| market cap =| revenue =| operating_income =| net_income =| assets =| equity =| owner =...
, New World
New World (supermarket)
New World is a New Zealand full-service supermarket chain owned by the Foodstuffs cooperative.Founded in 1963, New World was the first American-style full-service supermarket brand of Foodstuffs, and the second in New Zealand...
, Pak'n Save, and Woolworths) to be founded. As of December 2009, there are 45 Pak'n Save stores operating across the North and South Islands of New Zealand.
Pak'n Save's key policy is to provide everyday food and groceries at low prices. Stores are large and have a no-frills environment, often with unlined interiors and concrete floors. Customers are also asked to pack their own bags, and charged for plastic bags in most stores.
History
Pak'n Save was developed as a result of a trip by a number of FoodstuffsFoodstuffs
Foodstuffs is a group of three New Zealand grocery and liquor retailers' cooperatives based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch which collectively control an estimated 57% of the New Zealand grocery market...
executives to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1985. On that visit they saw Cub Foods
Cub Foods
Cub Foods is a supermarket chain with seventy-three stores in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based SuperValu...
, operated by SuperValu
Supervalu (United States)
SuperValu Inc. is a United States grocery retailer and distributor. The corporation, headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, has been in business for over a century. It is the third-largest food retailing company in the United States , and ranks #51 on the Fortune 100 list.On June 2, 2006,...
, Pak'n Save operated by Safeway
Safeway Inc.
Safeway Inc. , a Fortune 500 company, is North America's second largest supermarket chain after The Kroger Co., with, as of December 2010, 1,694 stores located throughout the western and central United States and western Canada. It also operates some stores in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern...
, and a number of other box warehouse supermarkets. Foodstuffs then copied this format in the New Zealand market. The original Pak'n Save format was almost an identical clone of Safeway's Pak 'N' Save chain in Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
.
The first Pak'n Save opened in 1985, at Kaitaia in the North Island, and the South Island in 1988 at Invercargill
Invercargill
Invercargill is the southernmost and westernmost city in New Zealand, and one of the southernmost cities in the world. It is the commercial centre of the Southland region. It lies in the heart of the wide expanse of the Southland Plains on the Oreti or New River some 18 km north of Bluff,...
. The biggest Pak'n Save is Lincoln North Pak'n Save in Auckland, which opened in 2004. Stores were opened in the Auckland suburb Mt Wellington
Mount Wellington, Auckland
-The volcano:Mount Wellington is a 137 metre volcanic peak located in the Auckland volcanic field of Auckland, New Zealand. It is the youngest onshore volcano of the Auckland volcanic field, having been formed by an eruption around 10,000 years ago...
in early August 2006 in the new Sylvia Park shopping mall, and on 5 December 2006 in Hawera
Hawera
Hawera is the second-largest town in the Taranaki region of New Zealand's North Island, with a population of . It is near the coast of the South Taranaki Bight, 75 kilometres south of New Plymouth on State Highway 3 and 20 minutes' drive from Mount Taranaki/Egmont.It is also on State Highway 45,...
.
Operations
As of December 2009, there are 45 Pak'n Save stores across the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Stores are often located in suburban areas, and are usually open until at least 10 pm (although some notable exceptions include Pukekohe, which closes at 8 pm).The name probably originates from the cost-saving practice of requiring that customers pack their own groceries. Pak'n Save provides the cardboard boxes used for shipping products to the store, or plastic
Plastic
A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...
supermarket bags can be purchased at the checkout for 10 cents at North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
stores. South Island
South Island
The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...
stores charge customers 5 cents per plastic bag. Customers are encouraged to purchase longer-lasting bags or to bring their own.
The stores are laid out as supermarket aisles, but with minimalistic design. Extra products that are not on shelves are stacked above the shelves on the pallets they were delivered in. This means that the floor space can be used for retail and storage. The stores are supplied daily from their co-operative distributor Foodstuffs.
Pak'n Save stores often buys stock in bulk. This process means that stores don't offer a wide variety of products as full-service supermarkets - a 2009 Consumer magazine survey noticed this especially in the pet food and toilet paper categories.
Some stores have self scanning
Self checkout
Self checkout machines provide a mechanism for customers to pay for purchases from a retailer without direct input to the process by the retailer's staff. They are an alternative to the traditional cashier-staffed checkout...
facilities, where the customer scans each item as they put it in their trolley
Shopping cart
A shopping cart is a cart supplied by a shop, especially supermarkets, for use by customers inside the shop for transport of merchandise to the check-out counter during shopping...
. This reduces waiting time at the checkout, as payment is the only thing that occurs (apart from random re-scans). Conventional checkout operator scanning is also available.
Competition
Pak'n Save's main competitors are stores owned by Progressive Enterprises, a division of Australian company Woolworths Limited. The main competitor is full-service discount chain CountdownCountdown (supermarket)
Countdown is a New Zealand full-service supermarket chain, owned by Woolworths Limited. Founded in 1981, Countdown is now the flagship brand of Progressive Enterprises, Woolworths' New Zealand supermarket subsidiary, with 133 supermarkets across New Zealand...
, and to a lesser extent, Foodtown
Foodtown
| area_served =| key_people =| industry = Retail| products =| services =| market cap =| revenue =| operating_income =| net_income =| assets =| equity =| owner =...
and Woolworths. Pak'n Save also faces a small amount of competition from Foodstuffs' full-service supermarket, New World
New World (supermarket)
New World is a New Zealand full-service supermarket chain owned by the Foodstuffs cooperative.Founded in 1963, New World was the first American-style full-service supermarket brand of Foodstuffs, and the second in New Zealand...
.
Pak'n Save is the cheapest supermarket in New Zealand when it comes to known brands - a 2009 Consumer magazine survey ranked Pak'n Save first in Auckland, with a basket of 40 items costing $115: $17 ahead of New World and $21 ahead of Countdown. However, Pak'n Save loses to its rivals when it comes to overall cheapest prices and private brand labels - a 2008 Consumer magazine survey placed Pak'n Save fourth with 15 items costing $40.11: losing out to Countdown, Woolworths and Foodtown by between $1.54 and $2.78. This was largely contributed to the fact that Foodstuffs' private brand Budget is lacking in many categories, which meant the more expensive Pams private brand was used - resulting in many prices ranking above Progressive Enterprises' Home Brand.
Fuel discounts
Pak'n Save offers fuel discounts to shoppers for spending a qualifying amount on shopping. Pak'n Save stores with on-site Pak'n Save Fuel filling stations offer vouchers to use at these stations. The Pak'n Save Fuel vouchers are unique in that they can only be used at the fuel site associated with the store of purchase, where as all other New Zealand supermarkets' fuel discount vouchers operate at any participating station across the country. Stores without on-site Pak'n Save Fuel filling stations offer vouchers for use at BPBP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
service stations.